Exberliner, Berlin's leading English-language magazine, this month sends you out to bridge the gap between amateur and artist, take a visit to Neverland (not the ranch) and travel around the city balancing on a two-wheeled gizmo. "/> Exberliner, Berlin's leading English-language magazine, this month sends you out to bridge the gap between amateur and artist, take a visit to Neverland (not the ranch) and travel around the city balancing on a two-wheeled gizmo. " />
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The best of Berlin in July

Exberliner, Berlin's leading English-language magazine, this month sends you out to bridge the gap between amateur and artist, take a visit to Neverland (not the ranch) and travel around the city balancing on a two-wheeled gizmo.

Published: 6 July 2009 14:24 CEST
The best of Berlin in July
Photo: DPA

Bridging Art

The Open Air Gallery at the Oberbaumbrücke (the bridge that connects reunification children Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg) organises its seventh edition, seeking to raise last year’s 40,000 visitor mark even higher.

The flow of traffic at the famous bridge will be stopped twice this summer to grant amateur and on-the-rise art some well-deserved space: More than 100 paintbrush wavers and clay shapers from around the globe will display, sell and spread their wares of Pop, Surrealist, avant-garde or post-something art. If your party-frenzied best bud claims he can’t make a goddamn thing out of fine art, drag him by the ear and let the DJ’s beats soothe his primitive behaviour.

No modern public art event would (alas) be complete without the direct involvement of the audience, so a 120-metre-long paper will be rolled out in the middle of the bridge to incite the visitor to prove his or her artistic skills. In the end, if that strange-looking vase that is reminiscent of your last trip to Mexico is way out of your budget, you can cut out a piece of the giant canvas and take home a real, spontaneous sample of art for free./DH

Open Air Gallery 2009, Oberbaumbrücke Friedrichshain/Kreuzberg, U-Bhf Schlesisches Tor, S+U Warschauer Str., August 2, 10-22

Stranded in Neverland

If Konrad Kinard had stayed in his native Texas, he would have become some sort of enemy of the state. But, luckily for us, he discovered the world and after surfing the as-yet ungentrified 1990s in Berlin, New York and London, and witnessing the McDonaldization of the free world in the present decade, he settled down on planet Kreuzberg.

In late January, Kinard started up a bar that has been gaining notoriety ever since, especially among the ever-faster growing community of Americans who love to get together to share their common hatred for America.

The S.I.N. bar is much more than meets the eye of the oblivious neighbour in need of a pack of cigarettes. Its regular program features a nutritious artistic palette of peculiar talents: a DJ who spins records ranging from Bluegrass to Mozart in a coherent flow, a solo guitarist who recycles old foot pedal effects and the highlight each month is the Anti-Slam: a poetry battle where the crappiest verse triumphs. German and English contestants must improvise a poem in less than 15 minutes and read it out in the opponent’s language. It’s harder than it looks – just try rhyming ‘unicorn’ with ‘Becks’…/DH

S.I.N. Bar | Schönleinstr. 6, U-Bhf Schönleinstr. Tue-Thu 21-2, Fri-Sat 21-late, tel. 6920 5103, www.sin-bar.de

Segway Kult-Tour

Like a cross between skiing and riding a horse, the Segway is by far the best way to release your inner child on a visit to Berlin. Travelling at up to 20km/h and with a battery range of 35km, these strange, vacuum cleaner look-alikes are perfect for city tours. For €65, you’ll find yourself bopping around the centre of town and the city’s most famous sites, with pauses for anecdotes and beer drinking (but be moderate: one drunk Dutch tourist drove his right into the Spree!).

The Segway has all sorts of balancing gadgets and speed gizmos to prevent you from ending up like our flying Dutchman. It is so intuitive, it turns at the slightest nudge of the handlebars – so, on second thought, it’s probably more obedient than a horse and safer than skis. If the price sounds a bit steep, persuade your boss to pay for a team-bonding exercise: it’s apparently the done thing these days./JB

Kunstverein Friedrichstadt | Chauseestr. 124, U-Bhf Zinnowitzer Str., Tel 2759 4937, three-hour city tours at 10:00 and 15:00 www.segway-kult-tour.de

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ART

African-born director’s new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

Published: 8 July 2023 10:13 CEST
African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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